Kids Are Learning History From Video Games Now
Last year, Nicholas Mulder, a history professor at Cornell University, asked his Twitter followers to help him understand a certain kind of student in his classes: players of the video game Europa Universalis. Students kept enrolling in his course on modern Europe because of the game, which he had only recently learned existed. Bret Devereaux, a history professor at the University of North Carolina, saw Mulder’s tweet as an opportunity to explain a new phenomenon.
Devereaux plays Europa Universalis and likes it. But the fact that video-game developers, rather than professional historians, were responsible for shaping so many young people’s understanding of history deserved greater examination, he thought.The games made by Paradox Interactive, the Swedish studio that produces Europa Universalis, are among the most strategy titles in the world. Millions of people own the games, which allow players to take control of a historical nation or individual and guideThe average Europa Universalis player spends hundreds of hours on it. Some spend thousands.
